Archive for » September, 2008 «

A Day Trip to Pattaya Beach and Nong Nooch

15 Sep 2008 by

My kids have been talking about going to the beach for some time, and so am I. LOL! It’s been years since my last trip to any beaches in Thailand, so I was dying for a trip! When hubby agreed on going to Pattaya on Saturday night, all of us were so excited. The children packed their simple bentos full of cookies and junks for the journey before going to bed. :)

Surprisingly, both our kids woke up at 6am on Sunday morning, even before hubby and I managed to get out of bed. That’s how eager and anticipated they were. I prepared some food for them for the picnic and off we went to pick up BIL’s family who were going with us too.

It took us about 2 hours to reach Pattaya, and the weather was great. It’s been raining cats and dogs in Bangkok these days, but it was so sunny yesterday.

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Pattaya, here we are!

 

 


Can’t really open our eyes. It’s so sunny!

 

There are a few attractions here in Pattaya, but we were only interested to go to the beach. We found a less crowded beach somewhere between Pattaya beach and Jomtien. There were not a lot of people here, so it’s perfect for us.

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We found a shady spot…

 


We are at the beach now, yippie!

 

We forgot to pack the sand toys for the children, so they played with the sand with their sandals for awhile. Shortly after, someone came selling sand toys to us and my kids could have more fun building their “sandcastle”.


Use our sandals first la…

 


Yeah! Got toys liao…

 

As usual, I enjoyed the sun a lot and took lots of photos of the topless angmoh girls, my kids, and the view.  The only thing I don’t like about the beach is it’s not totally clean. But well, it’s hard to find a clean beach now…Or maybe Rayong is better???


Not so clean due to the tide, I guess….

 

Oh ya, for my friends and family back home, here are some photos… :)


The leng chai koh koh…

 


The chubby mei mei…

 

 
The sleeping Thong Thong…

 

Something bad happened in the afternoon though. There was a family having a picnic just by our side. Their children went for a swim in the sea and 3 of them almost drown. We were playing by the waves and I heard the boy calling in Thai. Hubby thought that they were playing but I said they might be drowning. A few people heard that too and some men came to rescue.

The waves were strong, and kept pushing the children away. It took them a few minutes to get to the children and everyone was glad that one of the farang (foreigner in Thai) is a good swimmer. He managed to grab 2 children while their father got the other one. I tell you, everyone on the beach was worried. It’s like seeing the children drowning before our own eyes. Gosh…I’m glad that they are all saved, especially the older girl who’s holding onto a younger sibling. She was conscious, but motionless when they brought her up. After vomited some water, she looked better but still very pale. The ambulance came shortly after and brought the girl to the hospital.

Hubby almost jumped in, but then…..you see the photo la…Justin refused to let go of pa pa loh. My kids were very scared.

I dunno where the float came out from, but hubby pushed it to the rescuers in the sea.

 

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The family involved thanked the farang. He’s one good swimmer!

 

After seeing this incident, my kids realised how dangerous it is if they go to the sea unattended. Before this happened, Justin wanted to go to the water by himself, but we stopped him. I guess he understand the reason now.

We left the beach at about 4pm and headed to Nong Nooch Tropical Botanical Garden and Resort. This is such a nice place, if you have kids and enjoy photography. I snapped more than 300 photos here. LOL!

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Nong Nooch Tropical Botanical Garden and Resort

 

Actually, we arrived here kind of late, so we missed all the shows. Next time, we will come early, and spend a night in Pattaya so that we can have a nice walk in the big garden.

There is a small petting zoo here, and my kids went for horse and elephant riding again. :)


Mei mei, there’s a foal!

 

Can I ride on the dockey? LOL!

 


Waa!!! Stupid goat, go away!

 


I love horses!

 


Another family photo…

 


Mei mei, hold on tight ya? Don’t let go ya? (Justin really likes to watch over Isabelle)

 


Thong Thong is curious about anything!

 


On elephant ride. Too bad the professional cameraman “sao gong” already!

 


Feeding the elephant

We took a ride on the tour bus around the garden, and snapped more photos at the Cactus Garden and French Garden. We should really come here earlier as it’s getting sunset and the park closes at 6pm.


At the Cactus and Succulent Garden

 


At the French Garden

 

Have a stroll on the Sky Walk

 

The view is nice, that’s why I snapped so many photos. LOL! We should come here again some day…

We were the last visitors to leave the garden. Gosh, it gets dark earlier now, so it’s hard to have a lot of activities in the evening. We went for seafood as I was starving. :P It’s too dark dining on the beach, so no more photos on the nice big prawns we had.

It’s a nice day trip to Pattaya, and my kids were exhausted. They basically slept all the way back to our home, and they fussed a bit when we woke them up for shower. Have to take shower la, so “dirty” after a fun day in Pattaya.

Category: Family Moments, Vacation  17 Comments

Blogs Down

15 Sep 2008 by

All my domains could not be loaded again this morning, and it’s due to server down. Frankly, it’s quite frustrating when the server is down if it happens when I have the urge to blog. Nonetheless, I’m still using the service from my current Web Hosting company because the webmaster has helped me a lot since the day I started my first domain. I just hope that the server down time will not happen so often. :P

Previously, I tried private server, but it’s very costly. Unless you are willing to pay for the hosting fee, if not it’s best to look for other hosting options. You can check out the web hosting reviews and find any hosting company that suits your need. Lunarpages is having a special offer right now, so maybe you might want to have a look.

I don’t think I will change my host for the time being. I’ve just renewed it for another year! Luckily, I don’t have a lot of link ads now, so at least I won’t be seeing those spider crawlers sending emails asking about the ads. But if you are making money from Adsense, paid reviews and link ads, you can’t afford to have your sites down huh? :P

Category: My Blogs  Comments off

Visa Run Again?

15 Sep 2008 by

 Since I’m still using the tourist visa, I will have to renew the visa before it expires. My kids and I might have to go for visa run again, but I know that they don’t want to do so in Combodia border after our previous trip there. The living condition is pretty bad in that area, and my children had some “culture shock” seeing how tough the living condition is. Besides that, it’s so tiring just to do the run in a day, and there is nothing much to see at the border except some casinos. Furthermore, I don’t think they can be considered as some of the Best Casinos in the world. :P

Anyway, if we are really interested in gambling, we can just try our luck at Online Casino. Just check out this online Casino Review if you are looking for the links. Some of my friends are pretty hooked up with online casinos, but I’m not sure if they are still winning a lot of money right now. I prefer to keep my feet on the ground when it comes to making money. I just don’t have the kind of luck and guts needed for gambling.

I guess the best way of renewing our visas will be making a trip back home. Maybe after some time, we can just apply for dependent visa. That will be more convenient for us.

Category: Uncategorized  Comments off

Things We Do At Home

11 Sep 2008 by

My kids can’t watch TV on school nights, so we have to think of something to keep them occupied. Besides playing and reading, they like to prepare their own food too. They are too young to prepare our meals, of course, but they can certainly do simple things like Justin helping me to wash the veggie, and Isabelle helping daddy to set the table. By not having a maid at home, my kids are getting more independent now. But still, we have a housekeeper who comes in almost everyday to help me with the chores. If not, I will definitely “khi siao” with the housework and please don’t tell me that doing house chores is the best fat burner ok? I’m too busy……. :P

One of their favorite activities is making their own jelly. They have done this a few times, and previously, I used the raw jelly. But now, hubby bought the gelatin powder, which makes things easier.


Mixing gelatin powder with water

 

 


Check check and see if it’s still hot. Mommy, add cold water pls…..

 

 


Ok, cold liao. Let’s pour it into our star shape mould.

 

 


Isabelle still needs some help with this…

 

 


There you go. Just refrigerate it overnight and they will have desserts the next day.

This morning, my kids asked for bentos again. I didn’t have time to prepare as my head was spinning with flu bug attack. Thus, I took out the color animal picks and let them have fun “preparing” their own bentos.


Just put one animal pick on each sandwich cube…simple huh?

 


Justin’s bento

So, maybe I will get them involved in preparing their bentos more often. Right now, mommy and daddy are a bit sick. Can the kids fix dinner tonight? LOL! Just kidding la…

Category: Bento, Fun Time, Isabelle, Justin  4 Comments

We Need Rest

11 Sep 2008 by

All of us are not feeling well since yesterday. It’s raining season here in Bangkok, and we are having flu bug attacks. Hubby was down with fever yesterday, and I’m just not my own self right now. The kids are having running nose, but they are still fit for schooling.

Frankly, almost everyone at the office is not feeling well now. One of the staffs has some skin rash too, but I don’t think it’s Herpes Zoster Infection. It doesn’t look like what I read from the net. I guess it will take some time before everyone is totally healed as the virus is spreading around from one to another.

Anyway, as long as my kids are still active and playful, I guess they will be fine. As for hubby, he can’t afford to rest yet, not until he has visited a few more customers this week. Poor thing…

This announcement was paid for by Epocrates.

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Happy 5th Anniversary….cont…

10 Sep 2008 by

I know how blur hubby and I were yesterday, but we tried to make it special by celebrating our anniversary with the kids. We could just eat out, but it’s better to enjoy our meals at home so that my kids could be as messy as they wanted to be.

 

We bought a vanilla butter cake from S&P, and my kids were happy about it. They thought it’s papa and mommy’s birthdays, and they can’t understand what anniversary means. All they knew was they could have cake after dinner! LOL!


We put candles first…papa said 5 only.

 


Happy 5th anniversary!

 

Of course, , even if we told them to sing Happy Anniversary, the kids sang Happy Birthday. LOL!


Blowing candles…

 

 


I cut, I cut, I cut cut cut. *Actually, the cake was smashed. :P *

 

 


For the first time, we snapped a family photo using auto timer. :P

So, 5 years down the road, we have Justin and Isabelle celebrating our anniversary with us.

Category: Family Moments, Special Day  10 Comments

It’s Our Anniversary…But..

09 Sep 2008 by

I was out for long hours yesterday over some personal issue, so I had so much to do today. It’s a busy morning for me as hubby was out to visit some customers while I had to prepare some documents. There was so much to be done! And as I was busy typing, I checked on the calendar to verify today’s date. It’s 9th September. Wow, what a nice date, I told myself. Then I got busy typing…and typing… and typing… and chatting…

And suddenly, I remembered!!! Today is our anniversary! Hubby and I got registered on 9th September 2003, I think. Gosh, I’m so lame at remembering dates.

Sh*t, I can’t remember it…

Double sh*t, he can’t remember it…

Triple sh*t, I didn’t prepare anything for him…

More sh*ts, he didn’t buy me pressie or wish me Happy Anniversary!!! 

 

OMG!!!

 

One blur man

+

One forgetful wife

= 

One super-blur-and-forgetful couple who can’t remember their anniversary!

 

Pss….I smsed him and he replied that he had just remembered our anniversary by noon, at about the same time I did. At least we can still remember by today. LOL!

Category: Marriage  11 Comments

Praying Ritual

08 Sep 2008 by

I’m still getting used to the culture in Thailand, but so far, I think Thai people pray a lot. SIL organized a praying ritual yesterday, and it’s something the office staffs do on annual basis. We had to be there as early as 7.30am, so the poor mommy had to get up at 5am to prepare the bentos. :P

 

Made too much for the kids…

My kids did fuss a bit when we woke them up early, especially Isabelle. She didn’t even want to change! But then, she was happy again when I let her wear her favorite dress.

We rushed out of the house as early as possible, so the kids had to take their breakfast in the car. Luckily, we managed to reach there on time, and almost everyone arrived already, except the monks. The children were clueless about what’s going on, but I managed to snap some photos of them playing with each other, and I love it!







Playing… pushing…and laughing…

 


Oh gosh, mei mei, you see? Mommy’s taking photos of us. LOL!

 

The kids only managed to “sit through” the first 10 minutes of the praying ritual, and after that, they went out to sapu their bentos and play again. As long as they don’t disturb us, they could do whatever they wanted. :P


Err…what exactly are they saying huh, mommy?

 


The monks

 

After the prayers, we served the monks with some food. This is the first time I saw monks taking non-vegetarian meal.


Makan makan…

 


There were otak-otak, fish cake and chicken, which are non-vegetarian.

 

I thought that they will only take vegetarian food but SIL said the real monks will eat whatever we serve or donate. At the same time, we proceeded to the next ritual with a feng shui master, and there were more prayers.

Bai bai outside…

 

After that, we helped ourselves with the buffer while my kids had their bentos again in the office. Both of them wanted air-conditioning! :P

Frankly, everyone was quite tired when it’s over, and we headed back home shortly after. All of us headed to our beds for a good afternoon nap. It’s raining cats and dogs anyway, so it’s not a good day for outing…

Category: Family Moments  3 Comments

Repairing Soon

08 Sep 2008 by

 Since my friends are not coming to Bangkok this week, we might send in our car for repairing. We haven’t fixed the dented part yet, even if the accident was a month ago! We are glad that our Auto Insurance covers everything, so we don’t have to pay anything to get the car fixed. The workshop said that our car has to be there for about 3 weeks, so it’s going to be very inconvenient to us! I might go back to using cabs to pick up my kids for awhile. Gee…

Since our business has just started, it’s impossible for us to get another car so soon. It might be easy for us to get an Auto Loan, but I don’t want to worry about the monthly installment later. However, if our business is going well, we really need to get a second car here. It will be more convenient for hubby and I who might have to go to work separately occasionally. Did I mention that I prefer to leave work early for shopping? :P

If you are interested to buy a car, check out the various auto insurance options available at The Auto Finder. Even if you have a bad credit status, you can also find some Bad Credit Auto Loans here. So, check it out.

Anyway, I am not sure when will our car be sent in to the workshop. Gosh, I hate taxi!

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Cancel My Card…

08 Sep 2008 by

 I’m still using my credit cards issued in Malaysia, but I think I might cancel at least one Credit Card this week. Firstly, I don’t need a lot of credit cards except one for our insurance premiums, and another one for shopping. I prefer to use cash, if any! LOL! Besides that, paying for the credit cards via internet transfer comes with some charges, so I try my best not to use them now.

However, hubby might apply a Business Credit Card here, so if possible, I will just ask him to get me a supplementary card. Some times, you can get a better discount if you shop with certain credit cards here. I found that some of them offer discount up to 30% on new arrivals, so being a “wise” shopaholic, how can I not getting those credit cards? LOL!

Don’t worry ya? I will try my best not to blow my shopping budget. I don’t want to risk myself into having a bad credit, even if I’m aware that I can just apply for Bad Credit Credit Cards. If you are interested to get one, check out more details about it from Extra Credit Cards.com, ok?

Anyway, if you can afford it, pay with cash or use a debit card.

Category: Money Matters  Comments off
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